The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World

"This book is in part a detective story. After 9/11 I knew, if I needed further reinforcement, that we are living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-correcting, and fast-changing than it was even a quarter century earlier. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is my attempt to understand the nature of this new world." (Alan Greenspan)

The Map and the Territory: Risk, Human Nature, and the Future of Forecasting

Like all of us, though few so visibly, Alan Greenspan was forced by the financial crisis of 2008 to question some fundamental assumptions about risk management and economic forecasting. No one with any meaningful role in economic decision making in the world saw beforehand the storm for what it was. How had our models so utterly failed us? To answer this question, Alan Greenspan embarked on a rigorous and far-reaching multiyear examination of how Homo economicus predicts the economic future, and how it can predict it better.

Stress Test: Reflections on Financial Crises

On January 26, 2009, during the depth of the financial crisis and having just completed five years as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Timothy F. Geithner was sworn in by President Barack Obama as the 75th Secretary of the Treasury of the United States. Now, in a strikingly candid, riveting, and historically illuminating memoir, Geithner takes listeners behind the scenes during the darkest moments of the crisis.

The World Is Flat: The New Material from Release 3.0

These are the two completely new chapters from The World is Flat Release 3.0, on how to be a political activist and social entrepreneur in a flat world, and on the troubling question of how to manage our reputations and privacy in a world in which we are all becoming publishers and public figures.

Dealing with China: An Insider Unmasks the New Economic Superpower

When Hu Jintao, China's then vice president, came to visit the New York Stock Exchange and Ground Zero in 2002, he asked Hank Paulson to be his guide. It was a testament to the pivotal role that Goldman Sachs played in helping China experiment with private enterprise. In Dealing with China, the best-selling author of On the Brink draws on his unprecedented access to both the political and business leaders of modern China to answer several key questions.

Aftershock: Protect Yourself and Profit in the Next Global Financial Meltdown (Third Edition)

Written by the market oracles who predicted, with uncanny accuracy, the global financial meltdown and the economic chain reaction it set in motion, Aftershock offers a vivid picture of what to expect when the world's bubble economy inevitably pops. More importantly, it tells you how to protect your assets before and during the coming Aftershock and how to capitalize on the new opportunities that others will miss.

When Genius Failed: The Rise and Fall of Long-Term Capital Management

When Genius Failed is the cautionary financial tale of our time, the gripping saga of what happened when an elite group of investors believed they could actually deconstruct risk and use virtually limitless leverage to create limitless wealth. In Roger Lowenstein's hands, it is a brilliant tale peppered with fast money, vivid characters, and high drama.

The Alpha Masters: Unlocking the Genius of the World's Top Hedge Funds

The Alpha Masters brings the secretive world of hedge funds into the light of day for the first time. As the authority that the biggest names in the business go to before breaking major news, Ahuja has access to the innermost workings of the hedge fund industry. For the first time, in Alpha Masters, Ahuja provides both institutional and savvy private investors with tangible, analytical insight into the psychology of the trade, the strategies and investment criteria serious money managers use to determine and evaluate their positions, and special guidance on how the reader can replicate this success themselves.

All the Presidents' Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power

Nomi Prins ushers us into the intimate world of exclusive clubs, vacation spots, and Ivy League universities that binds presidents and financiers. She unravels the multi-generational blood, intermarriage, and protégé relationships that have confined national influence to a privileged cluster of people. This unprecedented history of American power illuminates how financiers have retained their authoritative position through history, swaying presidents regardless of party affiliation.

The collapse of America's credit markets in 2008 is quite possibly the biggest financial disaster in U.S. history. Confidence Game: How a Hedge Fund Manager Called Wall Street's Bluff is the story of Bill Ackman's six-year campaign to warn that the $2.5 trillion bond insurance business was a catastrophe waiting to happen. Branded a fraud by the Wall Street Journal and New York Times, and investigated by Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission, Ackman later made his investors more than $1 billion when bond insurers kicked off the collapse of the credit markets.

Currency Wars: The Making of the Next Global Crises

In 1971, President Nixon imposed national price controls and took the United States off the gold standard, an extreme measure intended to end an ongoing currency war that had destroyed faith in the U.S. dollar. Today we are engaged in a new currency war, and this time the consequences will be far worse than those that confronted Nixon. Currency wars are one of the most destructive and feared outcomes in international economics.

The Money Bubble

Turk and Rubino are back to say that history is about to repeat. Instead of addressing the causes of the 2008 financial crisis, the world's governments have continued along the same path, accumulating even more debt and inflating even bigger financial bubbles. So another - even bigger - crisis is coming.

james wiitala says:"Best book explaining the present financial chaos."

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance

A gripping history of banking and the booms and busts that shaped the world on both sides of the Atlantic, The House of Morgan traces the trajectory of the J. P.Morgan empire from its obscure beginnings in Victorian London to the crash of 1987. Ron Chernow paints a fascinating portrait of the private saga of the Morgans and the rarefied world of the American and British elite in which they moved. Based on extensive interviews and access to the family and business archives, The House of Morgan is an investigative masterpiece.

A History of the U.S. Economy in the 20th Century

The history of the U.S. economy in the 20th century is far too interesting-and far too important to our future-to be dismissed with just a few stock explanations. These 10 fast-paced lectures introduce you to vital economic lessons learned in the last century to provide invaluable guidance for understanding the current economy. Each lecture focuses exclusively on one decade to provide you with a clear understanding of economic developments and outside influences on the U.S. economy.

Code Red: How to Protect Your Savings from the Coming Crisis

Written by the New York Times best-selling author team of John Mauldin and Jonathan Tepper, Code Red spills the beans on the central banks in the U.S., U.K., E.U., and Japan and how they've rigged the game against the average saver and investor. More importantly, it shows you how to protect your hard-earned cash from the bankers' disastrous monetary policies and how to come out a winner in the irresponsible game of chicken they're playing with the global financial system.

World Order

Henry Kissinger has traveled the world, advised presidents, and been a close observer and participant in the central foreign policy events of our era. Now he offers his analysis of the twenty first century's ultimate challenge: how to build a shared international order in a world of divergent historic perspectives, violent conflict, proliferating technology, and ideological extremism.

The Search: How Google & Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business & Transformed Our Culture

What does the world want? According to John Battelle, a company that answers that question can unlock the most intractable riddles of both business and culture. And for the past few years, that's exactly what Google has been doing.

Publisher's Summary

"This book is in part a detective story. After 9/11 I knew, if I needed further reinforcement, that we are living in a new world - the world of a global capitalist economy that is vastly more flexible, resilient, open, self-correcting, and fast-changing than it was even a quarter century earlier. It's a world that presents us with enormous new possibilities but also enormous new challenges. The Age of Turbulence is my attempt to understand the nature of this new world: how we got here, what we're living through, and what lies over the horizon, for good and for ill. Where possible, I convey my understanding in the context of my own experiences. I do this out of a sense of responsibility to the historical record, and so that listeners will know where I'm coming from.

"The book is therefore divided in halves: the first half is my effort to retrace the arc of my learning curve, and the second half is a more objective effort to use this as the foundation on which to erect a conceptual framework for understanding the new global economy. Along the way I explore critical elements of this emerging global environment: the principles governing it; the vast energy infrastructure that powers it; the global financial imbalances and dramatic shifts in world demographics that threaten it; and, despite its unquestioned success, the chronic concern over the justice of the distribution of its rewards. Finally, I bring together what we can reasonably conjecture about the makeup of the world economy in 2030.

"I don't pretend to know all the answers. But from my vantage point at the Federal Reserve, I had privileged access to the best that had been thought and said on a wide range of subjects. I have not been inhibited in reaching for some fairly sweeping hypotheses." -Alan Greenspan

Never even took economics in school, but Greenspan talks about the economic history of America since he began his career after World War II. Fascinating even if you don't understand it all. Explains how capitalism really works, why it's the best system in the world so far, and what it is that keeps thirdworld countries so destitute (hint: unenforced property rights). The last chapter explains how gross domestic product is increasingly based on intellectual property rights, and what that means for our future.

If you are not very familiar with macroeconomics and would like to know Alan Greenspan's take on economic forces, principals and issues of modern times, this is a great book. You will find plenty of historical examples, future projections as well as eloquently explained economic and political relationships and trends that shape our world as we know today. Just as interesting is the authors' opinion of many prominent public figures he met during his career.
The book is intended to be an "easy read" for an average reader, so do not expect it to be of much academic value or any in-depth research/analysis that can be used for, say, investment purposes.
The narration is excellent, arguments are persuasive and easy to follow, the amount of material covered is also quite substantial.
Ideally, I would suggest this book to an average voter who wants to understand the economic impact of various public policies. Policies like "more taxes for the rich", "more power to the unions", "deport immigrants", "erect a trade barrier with China", "freeze gasoline prices" not only have a profound economic impact (mostly negative) on everybody, but also have a long history of prior attempts that we can learn a lot from.
Lastly, as much as Greenspan tried not to come across this way, but he surely seems to be riding a rather high horse. His opinion of self-importance and self-righteousness could use a trim..

I like Greenspan, but unfortunately this book is not worth the time. It's really two books in one, the first being a banal but amusing autobiography and the second an eye-lid dropping overview of the current economic state of the world. As is typical of former public figures with friends still in high places, the book treads very carefully - even in ripping Bush AG takes no great risks. This book is liking watching a team with a 20 point lead play out the fourth quarter - we're all good, let's not do anything to lose our place in history. Boring and safe. The last part of the book is so stuffed full of econ-speak that it will make your eyes glaze over - I started to understand why they call it the dismal science, even though I enjoy the subject. Geez, I even made it through the Wealth of Nations but AoT makes WoN look like a bastion of clarity at times. I'm going to take my nominal rate of time return and invest it in another information growth vehicle since this one exceeded the net present value of my current patience balance.

OK, I do not have an economics background, so the level of this discussion was perfect for me. I thought this was one of the most interesting and gripping books I have listened to. The narrator has a great voice which actually sounds a little like Greenspan.

but on to the content. Having been a casual, but not formal, student of economics since the Reagan years, it was great to relook at the last 25 years through the eyes of someone who played a key role in decisions made through the years. Furthermore, the economic insights were the insightful, considered, logical, and unemotional thoughts you might expect from Greenspan. As a non-economist but who has a great interest in human psychology and sociology, the level this book was written at was perfect. The interplay between psychology, economics, social structures, and politics is great great reading. i do not think this was targetted at people who are economics professors, and the book should not be criticized for this: it's targetted at the general readership.

sometimes you listen to books and you find that your mind has wandered for a few minutes and you have lost the train of thought. That never happened to me during this read. I found it rivetting.

This book gives great background on a man whose interests and talents are much more diverse that I'd ever realized. Contemporary issues and the evolution of our current financial markets are lucidly explained. To have the inside story from such an important character in our modern world is fascinating. Folks who don't follow the markets or the fed may find that this book gives them more information than they want and prefer the written version. I found the reader's voice a perfect match for the author and the material.

I can't say enough positive things about this book. In the beginning I was immediately drawn in by the description of the 9-11 crisis from an global and domestic economic standpoint.

I was inspired by the life, and humility of Greenspan. It was a true pleasure to learn more about him, where he came from, and how he lived such an incredible life.

I was truly educated on the macro economics of the world (I don't have an economics background). He presented history, present, and future predictions with a tremendous amount of background detail and supporting evidence.

Coming away from reading this book I feel inspired by the work Greenspan has accomplished; I have a better understanding of the workings of our government on economic matters; and I have a tremendously better understanding of globalization, free markets, and the future of the global marketplaces in our society.

I found it a pleasure to listen the the book from end to end and strongly recommend the unabridged version of this book, I can't imagine leaving out a single word.

If you pass on this book you will be missing out on one of the most insightful and educational works available today.

I really enjoyed this book. While Mr. Greenspan is not really a great author, his insight and perspective are unique and clarifying. Mr. Greenspan has strong libertarian tendencies, but demonstrates realism and practicality in his positions. He blasts tax-break and spend republicans just as strongly as tax and spend democrats (if not more so). He provides glimpses into how several recent presidents and their staffs have approached economics and the politics of taxation, interest rates, and spending. Even the personal vignettes were interesting enough. I would recommend this to anyone interested in the politics of US economic policies.

Who would have thought I'd find economics so fascinating? This book can get a little dense in spots for those of us who aren't economics experts, so I may have to give it a second listen. However, it was a fascinating slant on history, from the point of view of an expert who has lived through so many of the big economic events of the past century. Definitely worth the effort required to grasp the complicated issues. Highly recommended.

Remember the TV commercials in which a brain surgeon would reveal he wasn't really a brain surgeon, but he did stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night? That was my reaction to "The Age of Turbulence". So no, I'm not an economist, but I did read Alan Greenspan's book last night.
Robertson Dean's narration was outstanding as he wove through a deeply detailed insider's history of the economy over the last 30 years. Not surprisingly, Greenspan shares his world view of macroeconomics by connecting many disparate dots to form a coherent view of the modern global economy. For me the book was filled with many "Ah-Ha" moments in which I finally understood the roots of some of the economic issues which shaped my own life. Many of the topics, particularly his predictions on the fate of disinflation were simply fascinating.
By the end of the book, I found almost all of my lay person-level macroeconomic questions answered. As I write this review, in the midst of the September 2008 Wall Street meltdown, I find myself compeltely at ease. Greenspan innoculates the reader with a long-range vision which puts the current irrational fears into perspective. After sitting through Greenspan's tutorial in "Age of Turbulence", you will see events like these for what they are: opportunities.
I was sad to come to the end of this story. I could have listened for twice as long and I hope the maestro thinks about doing another book.

I would give this 4.5 stars if it were an option. It would be hard to read without some understanding of economics, but he explains much of the complex data really well. He comes off as a much more interesting and well rounded person than the super geek I expected. I was very interested in the behind the scenes action involved in keeping the economy rolling.

Your report has been received. It will be reviewed by Audible and we will take appropriate action.

Can't wait to hear more from this listener?

You can now follow your favorite reviewers on Audible.

When you follow another listener, we'll highlight the books they review, and even email* you a copy of any new reviews they write. You can un-follow a listener at any time to stop receiving their updates.

* If you already opted out of emails from Audible you will still get review emails by the listeners you follow.